Category: ha ha poop

OK, we admit it, we just picked this one because of the title. But the method for removing objects from the rectum using a cluster of balloons is actually pretty inventive.

“Removal of a rectal foreign body (FB) has become increasingly common in the recent times. Nature of rectal FB is limited only by the imagination of the patient concerned. Many techniques have been described for removal and various theories have been put forward to explain the mechanics of the procedure. We report a case where a new technique had been employed.”

Bonus excerpt and figure from the main text:
“Techniques for the safe extraction of a rectal foreign body require ingenuity, but few authors have considered the mechanics of this surprisingly common procedure Read More

OK, fine. It’s actually the Milky Way (we couldn’t help ourselves). But really, either way, it’s pretty amazing that dung beetles use stars to pilot their way out of a pile of poop. And besides, any study that involves putting dung beetles in a planetarium is a winner in our books.

Dung beetles use the milky way for orientation.

“When the moon is absent from the night sky, stars remain as celestial visual cues. Nonetheless, only birds, seals, and humans are known to use stars for orientation. African ball-rolling dung beetles exploit the sun, the moon, and the celestial polarization pattern to move along straight paths, away from the intense competition at the dung pile. Read More

ER doctors have to deal with some crazy stuff, perhaps the funniest of which involves people with various objects stuck up their butts. From salami and oven mitts to “plastic or glass bottles, cucumbers, carrots, wooden, or rubber objects…bulb, tube light, axe handle, broomstick, vibrators, dildos, a turkey buster[sic], utensils, [and] Christmas ornaments,” the list is long and varied. However, we think “eggplant” ranks close to the top, if only for its sheer audacity.

Management of rectal foreign bodies.

“Entrapped anorectal foreign bodies are being encountered more frequently in clinical practice. Although entrapped foreign bodies are most often related to sexual behavior, they can also result from ingestion or sexual assault.
METHODS:
Between 1999 and 2009, 15 patients with foreign bodies in the rectum were diagnosed and treated, at Izmir Training and Research Hospital, in Izmir. Information regarding the foreign body, clinical presentation, treatment strategies, and outcomes were documented. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of these unusual patients. Read More

A lot of great things can come out of finding new ways to degrade stuff. Like reducing the number of plastic bags in our landfills, or producing fuels from plant matter. Nature has evolved many enzymes that do these sorts of things very efficiently–the trick is figuring out how to find the organisms that make them. These scientists decided to look in koala poop! Although it might seem like a smelly choice, it makes sense that there might be organisms in koala poop that eat the “leftover” fiber from all that eucalyptus. Om nom nom nom!

Editor’s note: after nearly 3 years of NCBI ROFL, we’ve decided to change things up a bit by beginning our posts with a few explanatory remarks. We hope that this isn’t off-putting to our loyal readers, and that it will make our posts more accessible to non-scientists. Enjoy!

Knowing how long it takes poop to travel through someone’s intestines can help doctors diagnose a number of health problems. But how can doctors tell what this “transit time” is? The scientists in this study investigated that question by having volunteers eat visible pellets and measuring how long it took them to come back out (perhaps you have conducted a similar observational study after eating corn). They then determined which characteristics of the poop correlated with “transit time”. Apparently, poop texture (“stool form”) is better than the weight (“output”) or frequency at predicting how long it’s been inside you.

Stool form scale as a useful guide to intestinal transit time.

“BACKGROUND: Stool form scales are a simple method of assessing intestinal transit rate but are not widely used in clinical practice or research, possibly because of the lack of evidence that they are responsive to changes in transit time. We set out to assess the responsiveness of the Bristol stool form scale to change in transit time. Read More

“We report a case series of 5 patients who were found to have an allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) to their wooden toilet seats. The patients presented to our contact dermatitis clinic during a 5-year period from 2005 until 2010. In each case, there was a regional eczematous eruption localized to the buttocks and posterior upper thighs with an annular configuration that matched to the shape of the patients’ toilet seats Read More

Perceptions of flatulence from bean consumption among adults in 3 feeding studies.

“BACKGROUND:
Many consumers avoid eating beans because they believe legume consumption will cause excessive intestinal gas or flatulence. An increasing body of research and the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans supports the benefits of a plant-based diet, and legumes specifically, in the reduction of chronic disease risks. The purpose of the current research was to investigate the perception of increased flatulence and gastrointestinal discomfort among participants who consumed a ½ cup of beans daily for 8 or 12 weeks. Read More

“Figure 1: A 72-year-old man underwent follow-up colonoscopy after the removal of multiple tubulovillous polyps. Severe diverticulosis was the only finding. Three diverticula were seen adjacent to the larger lumen of the bowel.”Read More